John Wildermuth: SF Greens aim to help Cindy Sheehan get on the ballot against Pelosi

Cindy Sheehan’s endorsement by San Francisco’s Green Party today will give the anti-war activist’s longshot campaign for Congress a boost, but not because it adds much to her chances of beating House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in November.

With only about 2 percent of San Francisco’s registered voters, the Green Party is dwarfed by the Democrats, who take in better than 55 percent of the local electorate. But the 9,964 voters who call themselves Greens are almost equal to the 10,198 signatures Sheehan needs to get on the November ballot as an independent candidate.

”We are glad (Sheehan) is taking on Speaker Pelosi, who has been a huge disappointment even to her Democratic Party base,” Erika McDonald, a local Green Party spokeswoman, said in a statement today.

The Green Party, which won’t run a candidate in the congressional election, gives Sheehan a base of committed supporters willing to carry their clipboards to street corners and grocery stores across the city in an effort to collect the needed signatures.

Despite an unbroken series of landslide victories in 20 years of congressional campaigns, Pelosi has been attacked by the city’s progressive left for refusing to consider impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney and for not taking strong enough action to immediately end the war in Iraq.

Pelosi has continually reminded her opponents that San Francisco’s progressive activists don’t necessarily reflect the overall mood of the country — or even the Democratic Party — and that as a national party leader she has to consider the wider political picture.

Also this week, Sheehan’s campaign signed up former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia as her honorary co-chair. McKinney, who endorsed Sheehan’s effort last year, slammed Pelosi in a statement as someone who ”has forgotten the values of the people of California who sent her to Congress.”

Sheehan has until Aug. 8 to collect the signatures she needs to make the ballot.